...I stumbled across this XOJane post, in which thoroughly secular people recount their experiences in school with abstinence-only education. Here's a typical story:

[G]irls were given two glasses of water and told to chew up food and spit it into one of them.

Their teacher -- a guest speaker from an anti-abortion "crisis pregnancy" group, then asked them which glass they'd rather drink. The lesson, in case you haven't guessed already, is that premarital sex makes you a gross glass of regurgitated food.

The readers recounted many variations on the "used food" theme: kids were supposed to lick a Hershey's Kiss and then invite someone else to lick it, too. Or kids were asked to take tape and stick it to their arms or the floor, and then pass it down the line. At the end of the activity, you look at the tape, or the candy, or the cup of water and think, "Ew, this is used. I don't want any."

Is this what a typical abstinence-only education is like? If so, I'm as horrified and disgusted as the XOJane commenters.

What's so bad about this kind of presentation? I'm going to answer as someone who remembers being a teenage girl (maybe men will have a different perspective, and can share it in the comment box).

Here are the problems: First, the message simply won't work for so many girls. What about the girls who have already had sex or "gone too far?" These demonstrations teach them that they are already ruined, worthless, revolting, useless. Many will despair, and throw themselves into promiscuity whole hog out of misery, or out of some desire to compensate themselves by at least getting some pleasure out of their "ruination."

And what about girls who are in love with their boyfriends, or think they are? They'll think, "Well, this is no problem for me and my boyfriend. I can give myself to him and it will be pure and beautiful because we'll be together forever <3 <3 <3" (and meanwhile, the boyfriend is thinking, "Score!").

Labels: abstinence, adolescence, culture, Marriage, premarital sex, sex, sex education

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...The National Responsible Fatherhood Clearinghouse tracks pertinent statistics. "When fathers are involved in the lives of their children," it notes, "especially their education, their children learn more, perform better in school and exhibit healthier behavior. Even when fathers do not share a home with their children, their active involvement can have a lasting and positive impact. There are countless ways to be involved in your child's education at all ages."

The organization says children with highly involved fathers have increased mental dexterity, more empathy, less stereotypical views of their gender roles and better self control. They are more curious and better able to solve problems. A father's active involvement with his young children helps language and literacy development. When non-custodial dads are very involved with their kids' learning, those kids are more likely to excel at all grade levels. And when dad doesn't live with his kids but sees them often and plays a big role in their education and lives, three things are more likely: "Fathers paying child support, custodial mothers being more educated and custodial homes not experiencing financial difficulties," says the U.S. Department of Education.

But what if the number of families without fathers keeps growing and if there are, as Slayton suggests, entire communities that lack male role models? ...

The A stands for "all-in marriage," he says. "You hear people say ridiculous things like 'we had some struggles, some fights, and thought it better to get a divorce.' Statistics are very clear that is not the case" except with physical abuse, he says. "All marriages go through difficult times. But for the kids and the mom and dad, when (they) stick together and get through the difficult times, kids' futures and success are dramatically strengthened.

"Being a good husband to your wife is the biggest gift you can give to the children themselves," Slayton says. ...

[Tom Watson] believes men need to do better in their friendships. They hang out and talk about sports, he says, but they often don't dig deeper, and they should. Lots of men before him faced challenges he went through, he says, and there are opportunities to share the wisdom gained. Too often, it doesn't happen. They should be able to ask for support, and to do it on a regular basis, "not just when they're having a meltdown. They will tell you what they think about the New England Patriots in great detail, he says, but most avoid communicating on a level where they'd have to "almost unzipper our hearts."

Labels: childhood, children, culture, Fathers, friendship, gender, Marriage, parenting, unmarried parents

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...What the two researchers found, in a paper titled “A Bundle of Joy: Does Parenting Really Make You Miserable?” [pdf] (presented at the annual Population Conference of America), suggests that the balance of happiness is shifting, and that ultimately, we who protest as parents may be proved right. But it’s not necessarily because we’re getting happier. Rather, parents’ happiness has held steady over time, while the absolute happiness of those who aren’t parents responding to questions like “Taken all together, how would you say things are these days — are you very happy, pretty happy, or not too happy?” decreased from 1972 to 2008.

Why? We believe, Dr. Herbst wrote in an e-mail, “that children may inoculate parents from many social, cultural, and economic changes that have conspired to reduce most Americans’ happiness.” Other research suggests that a decline in community and political involvement, a sense of disconnect from family and friends, and a feeling of economic insecurity reduces people’s reported sense of well-being, but parents “have been relatively immune to those changes.” Instead, parents, according to their presented findings, “have become relatively more likely to visit friends, to get the news every day, and to remain engaged in politics,” and even to “agree that ‘family income is high enough to satisfy nearly all important desires.’”

“Happy” is a complex construct, an ever-changing barometer, and the ultimate in subjective standards: you’re only as happy as you say you are. Do parents have an advantage in having effectively created an excuse to do the things that seem to promote feelings of happiness, like personal interactions and a space in even a small community? Economists and social scientists will surely continue to try to work that one out. But at least those of us with children can be happy with this round of research findings — though they make provoke protest in others corners. The parents are all right.

Labels: children, culture, parenting

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In 2006, Japan reached a demographic and social turning point. According to Tokyo’s official statistics, deaths that year very slightly outnumbered births. Nothing like this had been recorded since 1945, the year of Japan’s catastrophic defeat in World War II. But 2006 was not a curious perturbation. Rather, it was the harbinger of a new national norm.

Japan is now a “net mortality society.” Death rates today are routinely higher than birthrates, and the imbalance is growing. The nation is set to commence a prolonged period of depopulation. Within just a few decades, the number of people living in Japan will likely decline 20 percent. The Germans, who saw their numbers drop by an estimated 700,000 in just the years from 2002 to 2009, have a term for this new phenomenon: schrumpfende Gesellschaft, or “shrinking society.” Implicit in the phrase is the understanding that a progressive peacetime depopulation will entail much more than a lowered head count. It will inescapably mean a transformation of family life, social relationships, hopes and expectations—and much more.

But Japan is on the cusp of an even more radical demographic makeover than the one now under way in Germany and other countries that are in a similar situation, including Italy, Hungary, and Croatia. (The United States is also aging, but its population is still growing.) Within barely a generation, demographic trends promise to turn Japan into a dramatically—in some ways almost unimaginably—different place from the country we know today. If we go by U.S. Census Bureau projections for Japan, for example, there will be so many people over 100 years of age in 2040, and so few babies, that there could almost be one centenarian on hand to welcome each Japanese newborn.Population decline and extreme population aging will profoundly alter the realm of the possible for Japan—and will have major reverberations for the nation’s social life, economic performance, and foreign relations. Gradually but relentlessly, Japan is evolving into a type of society whose contours and workings have only been contemplated in science fiction. It is not clear that Japan’s path will be a harbinger of what lies ahead in other aging societies. Over the past century, modernization has markedly increased the economic, educational, technological, and social similarities between Japan and other affluent countries. However, Japan has remained distinctive in important respects—and in the years ahead it may become increasingly unlike other rich countries, as population change accentuates some of its all-but-unique attitudes and proclivities.

Japan’s future population profile has already very largely been set. Well over 75 percent of the people who will inhabit the Japan of 2040 are already alive, living there today. The country’s population trajectory will be driven by three fundamental and distinctively Japanese trends: (1) extremely favorable general health conditions—the Japanese now enjoy the world’s greatest longevity, and the outlook is for further improvements; (2) an unusually strong aversion to immigration; and (3) the most pronounced and prolonged period of sub-replacement fertility of any nation in the modern world. ...

But there is more. Japan’s historically robust (if perhaps at times stifling) family relations, a pillar of society in all earlier generations, stand to be severely and perhaps decisively eroded in the coming decades. Traditional “Asian family values”—the ideals of universal marriage and parenthood—are already largely a curiosity of the past in Japan. Their decay has set in motion a variety of powerful trends which virtually ensure that the Japan of 2040 will be a country with far greater numbers of aged isolates, divorced individuals, and adults whose family lines come to an end with them.

At its heart, marriage in traditional Japan was a matter of duty, not just love. Well within living memory, arranged marriages (miai) predominated, while “love matches” (renai kekkon) were anomalies. Love matches did not exceed arranged pairings until 1970—yet by 2005, only six percent of all new marriages fit the traditional mold. The collapse of arranged marriage seems to have taken something with it. Remarkably enough, there is a near perfect correlation between the demise of arranged marriage in Japan and the decline in postwar Japanese fertility.

Labels: aging, arranged marriage, children, demographics, divorce, immigration, Japan, Marriage

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When Steven Schafer looks out over his small congregation on Sunday mornings, he sees a picture of modern American family life.

About half of the congregants come from what was once typical — families headed by married couples.

The rest include “a lot of single parents, a lot of divorced parents, a lot of grandparents raising their kids,” said Schafer, pastor of Ridgewood Baptist Church in Pleasure Ridge Park. “The traditional family is not the norm.” That presents a major challenge to churches, which are struggling to respond to the revolution in how Americans structure their families, households and romances.

Nearly half of American adults today aren’t married — whether never-married, currently divorced, separated or widowed, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Married couples account for just under half of all American households — down from 71 percent in 1970, according to the U.S. Census.

Yet still today, married people are more likely than singles to attend church. And churches often seem focused on the nuclear family, whether it’s in the sermon topics, the posters on the walls or the graded Sunday schools.

The Rev. Kevin Cosby, pastor of St. Stephen Church, said his congregation is trying to create a culture in which “you’re not abnormal if you’re single.”

Labels: Christianity, cohabitation, culture, Marriage, religion, single parenting, singles, unmarried parents

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Labels: Catholic Church, culture, religion, singles

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...The action is largely on the marriage side of the equation: the marriage rate has dropped 17 percent in 10 years, while the divorce rate has dropped 10 percent. The two tend to rise and fall together, but clearly not tightly so. People are being more selective about marrying, likely, and as a result there are fewer divorces.

Third, some states exhibit dramatically different stories here. The marriage rate in Mississippi has dropped 48 percent in 20 years (from 1990 to 2010), while their divorce rate has dropped 22 percent. Their ratio of new marriages to divorce is now 1.14-to-1, meaning that if you were going to go ahead and misinterpret that statistic the old-fashioned way, you’d say something like 88 percent of all marriages in Mississippi will end in divorce. Of course we don’t know the future, and any given year’s new marriages aren’t often also reflected as divorces that year—Hollywood goofballs notwithstanding—but the ratio tells us that there are nearly as many divorces in Mississippi now as there are marriages. Not good.

So which state has the best ratio? Which means (to me at least) the most marriages relative to divorces…the blessed state of my birth: Iowa, where 2.9 new marriages were registered in 2010 for every one divorce. Sociologist Maria Kefalas wrote about Iowa as having many “marriage naturalists,” and it appears so. Even though I’ve been gone from the place since I was 13, cultural traces remain, no doubt.

Labels: cohabitation, culture, divorce, Hawaii, Iowa, Mark Regnerus, Marriage, Mississippi, North Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia

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...Unilever accompanied roughly 100 males (identical studies were later carried out across other European countries, North America, and Latin America) ages 15 to 50 to the pubs until three or four in the morning and (soberly, while secretly taking copious notes) watched them in action. After poring over their pages and pages of notes, via a process known in the industry as "segmentation," the Unilever team isolated six psychological profiles of the male animal -- and the potential Axe user: the Predator, the Natural Talent, the Marriage-Material Guy, Always the Friend, the Insecure Novice, and the Enthusiastic Novice.

Ultimately, they decided the most obvious choice would be the Insecure Novice, followed by the Enthusiastic Novice, followed by the Natural Talent.

Labels: consumerism, culture, gender, men, sex

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...And yet, in the rush to (rightly) condemn, conservative responses have often overlooked the fact that Savage was on to something. In the past year, commentators including Elizabeth Scalia, Melinda Selmys, and Mark Shea have written articles to present the gay community as something other than simply an enemy. Each made clear their adherence to orthodox sexual ethics, but each nonetheless received a venomous response from many of their Christian readers. ...

Thus, the first line of response conservative Christians offer to the pastoral problem of homosexuality is to try to get rid of the problem through ex-gay ministries or reparative therapy; thus, Christian protest to the Uganda bill was half-hearted at best; thus, the concern for Christians over gay bullying has been minimal, and some Christians have even organized opposition to the opposition of gay bullying. The guiding principle is not the distinction between sexual activity and orientation, but their conflation into lifestyle or identity, and so those who are targeted for being or seeming to be gay are given only the most abstract support for their profoundly concrete humiliation.

Last year, Biola professor Matt Jenson addressed students in chapel (like Savage’s address, also available on YouTube). After calling Christians to accountability for failing to make a real space for single people, he turns to the question of homosexuality. “The church is right to tell gay people the good news and call them to a life of discipleship, if and only if it is willing to live as their family.” If Christians have any interest in reaching out to the gay community, if we have any hope to speak a message which can touch their hearts as well, we absolutely must be willing to live as their family. Behind his blundering obscenity, behind his facile attempts to explain Scripture away, behind the blatant hypocrisy of his behavior toward those who disagree with him, what Dan Savage means to tell us is, “The church has far too often, and for the most wrong-headed reasons, failed to be family to gay people.”

And he’s right.

Labels: Catholic Church, Christianity, culture, Dan Savage, homosexuality, religion

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Announcing the results of his long-term “evolution” on the subject last week, President Obama revived the debate over gay marriage. In the widespread discussion, however, there is one question that’s rarely asked: How interested are gay couples in getting married?

Heretofore at least, the answer seems to be “not really.” Since 1997, when Hawaii became the first state in the union to allow reciprocal-beneficiary registration for same-sex couples, 19 states and the District of Columbia have granted some form of legal recognition to the relationships of same-sex couples. These variants include marriage, civil unions, domestic partnerships, and reciprocal-beneficiary relationships; and the most recent U.S. Census data reveal that, in the last 15 years, only 150,000 same-sex couples have elected to take advantage of them — equivalent to around one in five of the self-identified same-sex couples in the United States. This number does not appear to be low because of the fact that only a few states have allowed full “marriage”; indeed, in the first four years when gay marriage was an option in trailblazing Massachusetts, there were an average of only about 3,000 per year, and that number included many who came from out of state.

This dearth of early adopters is not peculiar to America. Research conducted in 2004 by Gunnar Anderson, a professor of demography at Sweden’s Stockholm University, seems to confirm the trend. ...

Enthusiasm for marriage is somewhat lopsided by gender. Divorces, too.

Labels: culture, domestic partnership, Europe, gay couples, gay marriage, gay/straight differences, gender differences, lesbians, Massachusetts, men, Norway, Sweden, women

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Evan, Elizabeth, Rachel, Abigail and John all have something in common. They were born this spring at Fletcher Allen hospital in Burlington, Vt.

Around the same time, a group of babies named Paislee, Liberty, Rykan and Scottlynn were all born in and around North Platte, Neb.

Styles of baby names, it seems, are nearly as different in various parts of the country as voting habits. "There is an enormous red state and blue state divide on names," says Laura Wattenberg, founder of BabyNameWizard.com and author of The Baby Name Wizard, which claims to be "the expert guide to baby name style."

But this doesn't play out the way you might expect. More progressive communities, Wattenberg says, tend to favor more old-fashioned names. Parents in more conservative areas come up with names that are more creative or androgynous. ...

The reason for more outlandish-sounding names cropping up in conservative quarters is simple, Wattenberg says. Women in red states tend to have their first children earlier than women in blue states. A 23-year-old mom is more likely to come up with something out of the ordinary than one who is 33.

Labels: children, class, culture, parenting

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Sir Paul Coleridge, the Family Division judge who recently launched a new charity to combat marital break-up, had been lined up as the main speaker at the annual event at the Law Society’s London headquarters later this month.

But organisers were forced to cancel it at short notice after the Law Society ruled that the programme reflected “an ethos which is opposed to same sex marriage”.

They accused the Society, which represents solicitors in England and Wales, of an “extraordinary” attempt to stifle debate on current affairs and warned that the cancellation itself could be against equality laws.

Lawyers, journalists and think tank chiefs were due to speak alongside Sir Paul at the annual conference organised by the World Congress of Families, a US-based non-religious group which promotes traditional family values.

Around 120 people were expected to attend event which this year took as its theme: “One Man. One Woman. Making the case for marriage, for the good of society.”

Sir Paul, who made headlines last week as he launched a new charity, the Marriage Foundation, was due to speak on the effects of divorce on society.

Labels: discrimination law, divorce, gay marriage, law, Marriage, professional associations, United Kingdom

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Last week, The American published a piece by Eric Kaufmann on why the future will be more religious and conservative than we think. Kaufmann argues that there is a growing fertility advantage among more religious Americans, who tend to be more conservative. Kaufmann zeroes in on Hispanic and Asian population growth, which he argues will stabilize the share of nonreligious Americans at today’s levels.

Kaufmann’s analysis focuses largely on racial differences in religious identification. But when it comes to the shape of the future, looking to trends among the young may provide clearer insights. ...

While the PRRI survey shows a high degree of change among today’s Millennials, a Pew analysis of General Social Survey data shows they have a higher rate of unaffiliation than previous generations. Compared to their Baby Boom parents, Millennials (which Pew defines as ages 18 to 29) are twice as likely to list themselves as unaffiliated (26 to 13 percent). If the experience of early generations is a guide, levels of unaffiliation persist over time. The percentages of religiously unaffiliated members of the Greatest, Silent, Boomer, and Gen X generations have held remarkably constant over time. The level of unaffiliation among Millennials is therefore likely to remain high in the long run.

The proportion of young people who frequently attend worship services is also declining.

Labels: culture, demographics, race, religion

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You think a romantic relationship between two people is hard? Try polyamory.

A panel of experts at the American Psychiatric Association meeting in Philadelphia last week said that open relationships between more than two people can work, but it requires a lot of talk about rules, boundaries, and time spent with various lovers.

William Slaughter, a psychiatrist in Cambridge, Mass., who has been treating polyamorous patients for about five years, said they need to have very good communication skills and be especially good at “mentalizing” or understanding others’ emotional reactions. He and Richard Sprott, a psychologist at California State University East Bay, and Elisabeth Sheff, a sociologist who recently left Georgia State University, talked about what to expect from polyamorous patients. Such patients often complain that they have to spend too much time educating their therapists, Slaughter said. ...

Sheff and Sprott believe polyamory is increasing. Sprott said younger generations are less insistent on monogamy than their parents. He cited research that found that 29 percent of lesbian couples, 29 percent of cohabiting straight couples, and 47 percent of gay couples are not monogamous. Among married couples, 23 percent of men and 19 percent of women cheat at some point in the marriage. He said there is no way to know how common polyamory is. ...

Sheff has studied children in polyamorous families. In her small sample, the “kids tend to be in great shape.” These families often aren’t obvious to the mono world. They look like a couple whose good friends come over a lot or people who are good friends with their exes. Most are discreet about sex, so the kids aren’t confronted by it and neither are their friends.

Sheff said the children say they like having extra adults in their lives. There’s always someone to drive them somewhere or help with homework. “A number of them expressed pity for children who only have two parents,” she said.

Labels: adultery, children, cohabitation, gay/straight differences, lesbians, mental health, monogamy, more than two parents, parenting, polyamory, professional associations

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...1. Go to bed mad.

The old maxim that you shouldn't go to bed mad is stupid. Sometimes you need to just go to freakin' bed. "Let not the sun go down upon your wrath" is prefaced in the Bible by the phrase "Be angry and sin not." So, who's to say it doesn't mean "Stay angry, bitches. Don't let the sun go down on that awesome fierce wrath of yours." Seriously. Whoever interpreted this to mean that you should stay up after midnight, tear-stained and petulant, trying to iron out some kind of overtired and breathy accord -- was stupid. Shut up, go to bed, let your husband get some sleep. In the morning, eat some pancakes. Everything will seem better, I swear. ...

7. Have kids.

Kids stop you from being as crazy as you want to be. Because when you have kids, you can't be that crazy. ...

10. Stop thinking temporarily.

Marriage is not conditional. It is permanent. Your husband will be with you until you die. That is a given. It sounds obvious, but really making it a given is hard. You tend to think in "ifs" and "thens" even when you've publicly committed to forever. If he does this, I won't tolerate it. If I do this, he'll leave me. If I get fat. If I change jobs. If he says mean things. If he doesn't pay more attention. It's natural, especially in the beginning of your marriage, to keep those doubts in your head. But the sooner you can let go of the idea that marriage is temporary -- and will end if certain awful conditions are met -- the sooner you will let go of all kinds of conflict and stress. Yes, you may find yourself in a horrible situation where it's absolutely necessary to get a divorce. But going into it with divorce in the back of your mind, even in the way way way back of your mind, is going to cause a lot of unnecessary angst. Accept that you're going to stay with him. He's going to stay with you. Inhabit that and figure out how to make THAT work, instead of living with the "what if"s and "in case of's."

11. Do not put yourself in trouble's way.



Leave your ex-boyfriends and girlfriends alone. I'm sure you're very trustworthy. Aren't we all? The thing is, there's absolutely no reason to test it. Your husband and your marriage are more valuable than any friendship. Any friendship that troubles the marriage should be over immediately. Protect it with knives and teeth, not because it's fragile but because it's precious. Don't ass around with a "hall pass" or a "harmless flirtation." Adultery isn't an event, it's a process with an event at the end. Don't put your feet on a path that could lead someplace bad.

Labels: adultery, children, culture, Marriage, parenting, sex

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